Drawing Dynamic Portraits with Matthew Brennan

Artist Matt Brennan runs through four different drawing techniques to help you either get started in drawing, or strengthen your craft! Matt shows us that there is no one right way to draw, and helps us expand our techniques and our ideas of how to draw!

The four drawing techniques are: extended arm, blind contour, continuous line, and opposite hand. 

For this workshop, you will need:
-any basic paper you have lying around (computer paper, a notepad, etc.)
-pencil
-a second pencil, as well as a long object (a stick, screwdriver, another pencil, etc.) to tape or otherwise attach your pencil to

MEET THE INSTRUCTOR

Matthew Brennan is based out of New York City and his current studio is located in Greenpoint, Brooklyn. He was trained at Pratt Institute and received a Bachelor of Fine Arts with Honors. Since 2005, his drawings, paintings and sculptures have been exhibited in shows throughout the Northeast. Brennan’s artistic practice is rooted in drawing and he has been an active member of the figure drawing community within NYC. Aside from personal art projects, his work has been printed as illustrations for the New York Times and he has completed many prop and puppet fabrication jobs for clients including The Jim Henson Company, Puppet Heap and The New York City Opera. These build based jobs help him think dimensionally and this greatly adds to the way he composes and constructs within a drawing. Brennan had his first solo show in April of 2018 where he showcased four years of drawings based on the inspiration of fish translated to human movement. Currently, his new body of work includes bodies engaged in transmutation and alternate possibilities of motion.

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Technique #1: Extended Arm

The purpose of this technique is to add distance between your body and the paper, allowing you to draw from the shoulder and elbow, as opposed to just the wrist alone. This will help create fluid lines and more graceful drawings. It may feel a bit clumsy, but this will allow you to create lines in a different, more loose way and open up the way you draw.

Technique #2: Blind Contour

With this technique, you don’t look at your paper while drawing at all! Instead, you will solely focus on the object you are drawing. Once you put your pencil down on the paper to begin drawing, you will move your gaze to what you are drawing, and purely observe.

This will allow you to focus on details and draw what you are seeing, rather than how you think the object is supposed to look. Blind contouring helps you create drawings that are true to reality, rather than the preconceived notion of how you think something should look.

Technique #3: Continuous Line

The purpose of this technique is to not lift your pencil from the paper as you draw. Try to get as many details as you can without interrupting the line you have started. Flow through the drawing, this technique will create extra lines and new ways to work through the paper. 

Technique #4: Opposite Hand

For this technique, you simply use your non-dominant hand to draw. This works as an exercise in hand-eye coordination, strengthening the connection between your brain and your hand by introducing the challenge of working with your opposite hand. 

Matt used all four of these techniques for a single portrait, then filled in details after implementing the techniques. The resulting drawing is a dynamic portrait that draws your eye through the work and employs multiple styles and techniques that come together in a striking, unique way!

Then, add in details!